TUESDAY

The final day of competition has a small chance of wind in store but with less than an hour until the final call it is a very slim chance that the second single will get underway. So it is highly likely that Gollito Estredo is the winner of this years first PWA event, with Steven Van Broeckhoven in second and Kiri Thode in third. Head back later for final confirmation and video updates.

MONDAY

There was little to light wind on Monday until 12 o’clock when suddenly the conditions improved and Phil Soltysiak was the first to hit the water. Fully planning just a hundred meters off the beach he grabbed the attention of all the other riders and PWA crew and preparations to start competition got under way immediately. After 2 hours of stop/start winds with several attempts to begin the first heat the crew decided to set longer postponements until the wind eventually dropped off and there was no chance to try to start the second single elimination. Despite this there was still plenty of moves being thrown and once again Continentseven were on the scene to capture the action, here is their take on it.

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Now on the fourth day in PWA Austria much has been happening over the weekend. Currently a second single elimination has just begun as a strong south wind has kicked in, surprising all competitiors, many of whom were expecting a day of tanning and enjoying the event site. In this news post we catch up with what has happened thus far. Firstly a special thanks to Continentseven who have allowed us to use and push their clips which they have been producing of the event.

FRIDAY

On the opening day of the event temperatures soared as Austria truly stepped into summer with a bang, there were many fears that the ongoing winter spell would affect the event and hot tubs had been brought in ready to keep the riders warm. As the conditions didn’t improve the highlight of the day was the tow-in training which took place later in the evening. Check our round up about this a little later, following this the opening ceremony was held later in the evening. A thousand strong crowd were there as the riders were introduced one by one, here is what happened.

SATURDAY

The day that everyone was talking about, the forecast showed strong south winds like you rarely ever see on lake Neusiedler and the forecast certainly delivered. An early start for all as the plan to complete a full double elimination in one day had been hatched and so the riders and crew met at 08:00 on the beach, however the wind wasn’t playing ball and the moment everyone arrived the wind disappeared completely, leaving all slightly bewildered. However, an hour later and the first windsurfers hit the water on the 4.8′s and sure enough as soon as they hit the water they were returning for 4.4 and even 4.0′s, the competition was on!

There were many fierce battles throughout the day, some upsets and a few injuries, all of which can be read on the official PWA Press Release HERE. In the end it was 5 x world champion, Jose ‘Gollito’ Estredo who stormed to victory ahead of Steven Van Broeckhoven and Kiri Thode who finished second and third respectively. Action clips from the early heats and the double elimination can be seen below.

SUNDAY

With light winds forecast Sunday saw little action take place on the water except that of two tow-in qualification rounds (tune back in later for our round up). The slightly slack winds were perhaps a good thing for many of the competitors who were out celebrating until the small hours after the triumphs of the previous day.

MONDAY

With the first round kicking off the winds are fickle and the start of the first heat continues to be postponed. We will be sure to get an update later in the day as to what is happening, for those interested and with time then keep an eye on the PWA Live Ticker, where you can follow all the competitors as the day progresses. PWA Live Ticker.

Up first then is Fanatic/North sailor Jose ‘Gollito’ Estredo. Starring in some big productions from Andre Paskowski at the end of last year it looks like he is now back at home in El Yaque with good friend Cheo Diaz and it turns out that Ricardo Campello is also on the scene, check the photo below.

On top of that Gollito has released the odd move recently, including this insane double burner!

Kiri Thode is up next and up he certainly is as he continues to push to new heights. Looks like he wants to show the world a thing or two with this air kabikuchi off flat water. That said, eyewitness reports tell us that he was already doing them during heats in Fuerteventura last year. That we can definitely believe.

No guesses for who is next, that’s right third placed PWA Freestyler from 2012 and PWA Freestyle World Champion from 2011, Steven Van Broeckhoven. Although news is fairly quiet from Steven over these winter months we know that only means one thing, new moves are in the pipeline as well as one epic winter training video. This is all backed up by Andraz Zan who was in Sao Miguel de Gostoso at the Club Kauli Seadi Centre with Steven for sometime during December, both training and filming. Below is an image captured from some of that very footage, back to sail, switch stance in some form of shaka position… confused? Us too. What we do know is that the next video will be coming out towards the end of February, so be patient and we’ll be sure to have it on here around that time.

That can only mean it is Taty Frans next. Taty has been at home in Bonaire by the looks of things, no matter what goes on there we can be sure of one thing, Taty will be windsurfing. Probably the most technical windsurfer of them all he shows us power with one of his latest updates, an outstanding skopu in some pretty choppy conditions.

So last but by no means least, Tonky Frans. Well to be honest we posted his latest video already today so go check that out here – boardseekermag.com/news/video-tonky-in-holland. We do know that Tonky is now spending a lot of time in Europe, training in cold waters could well be the advantageous for next year, I guess we just have to wait and see…

For the wave and slalom heads, tune back in soon for a similar round up.